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News reports Feb 7 2010

Stilfontein farm worker Ms Sophie Jonas was still cleaning the blood-stains from the homestead’s carpet when Beeld journalist Nicolize van der Walt arrived on January 26 2010 to report about the frenzied panga-attack which has left Afrikaans farm resident Theresa Eksteen, 51, in serious condition at a local hospital.

According to her family, Mrs Eksteen, left, underwent surgery to repair her crushed hands – one pinkie was nearly severed -- and she remains in deep shock and in pain.

“We suspect that it was a former employee who was fired in December. During the man ‘s panga attack, her cheek-bone was hewn open right across the cheek, she was bashed over the head, her hands were chopped up and her pinkie was nearly severed in the frenzied attack,’ said Mrs Hilda Hodges, her mother .

The picture left of the injured Mrs Eksteen was taken by neighbours while she was being stabilised by emergency personnel.

Mrs Hodges lives just a few metres away from her daughter’s cottage along the Vaal riverfront. “She came knocking at our door, and blood was streaming from her. She couldn’t speak and could barely stand.’

Her husband Norman – who works in Zimbabwe, installing cellphone towers – rushed back upon hearing the dreadful news.

Right after the attack, local farmers, neighbours and workers rushed in to help find the attacker and hunted the man down after a 4-hour search. They handed him over to the police. The panga found in his possession was accepted to be the murder-weapon, said police afterwards.

The homestead was coated in blood – the bed, bedding, curtains, mats and most of the kitchen. “It happened while she ws struggling to walk to the front door to seek help. It’s cruel, but the Lord is good to us and we are getting our strength from Above, she will be allright,’ said her mother.

CAPE TOWN. Deo Kaitesi, a Rwandan-born student/waiter in South Africa who plays for Bob Skinstad's Noordhoek Vikings rugby team, has laid charges of assault against police, claiming black police officers repeatedly shocked him with stun guns on his body and burnt his genitals and shouted racist abuse at him, calling him an ‘amakrerekwere’ (foreigner) and telling him: ‘this is not your land…’

He went to lay a charge at the police station and was told to ‘voetsek’ when he insisted that he did not want a black police officer to take his statement.

Rwandan-born Deo Kaitesi, 26, who has lived in Cape Town since he was nine, had been with teammates at the Dubliner Irish Pub in Long Street on Friday night after the opening ceremony of the Cape Town Tens, a rugby festival which was held this weekend at Hamiltons Rugby Club. Kaitesi, a business administration student, had popped out for a breath of fresh air about 11pm and was accosted by two black policemen who asked him for his papers. When he tried to explain that he did not have them on him as he was in town for a rugby festival, he says the police escorted him to a deserted dark street near Parliament.

Several other policemen joined them, he says, and proceeded to shock him with cattle prods and taunt him, calling him "amakwerekwere", a derogatory name for foreigners. "They told me 'this is not your land'. I was numb. I know you don't fight the police so I put my hands up. It was all I could do."

Kaitesi, who lives in Masiphumelele with his mother Aurelia, said the police pulled his trousers down and burnt his penis with a lighter. Then they searched him, took R300 from his wallet, and left. Kaitesi decided to head home and caught a train to Fish Hoek, but said one of the policemen followed him and sprayed him with teargas at the train station.

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '